Cosmic and Human Metamorphoses

Schmidt Number: S-3349

On-line since: 10th January, 2001

LECTURE 6MAN AND THE SUPER-TERRESTRIAL.Berlin, 13th March, 1917.

LET us dwell again today a little on the considerations already
referred to as the so-called Three Meetings. We have said that the two
alternate states of sleeping and waking, in which man lives in the
short course of twenty-four hours, are not only what they seem to
external physical life, but that during every one of these two-fold
periods man has a meeting with the Spiritual world. We explained this
by saying that the ego and the astral bodies, which are separated from
the physical and etheric bodies during sleep  being breathed
forth as it were, on going to sleep and breathed in again on waking
 that these during the hours of sleep meet with the world we
reckon as belonging to the Hierarchy of the Angeloi. To this world our
own human soul will also belong when it has formed the Spirit-Self; in
this rules as highest directing principle, that which in the life of
religion we are accustomed to call the Holy Spirit. We have gone
somewhat minutely into the meeting which man has with the Holy Spirit
in the Spiritual world, during each one of his normal periods of
sleep.

Now, we must very clearly understand that in the course of the
development of the human race, during the evolution of the earth,
changes have taken place with regard to these things. What then
actually takes place while man is asleep? Well, I think I made that
clear in the last lecture, from the standpoint of what takes place
within man. Considered in his relation to the universe, man in a
certain sense, imitates that rhythm in the world-order, which is
established in any one part of the earth by the fact that one half of
the twenty-four hour period is day and the other half night. Of
course, it is always day in some part of the earth, but a man only
lives in one part of it, and in respect to this the rule given holds
good: wherever he lives, he imitates the rhythm between day and night
in his own rhythm of sleeping and waking. The fact that this rhythm is
broken through in modern life, that man is no longer compelled to be
awake at day and asleep at night, is connected with his progress in
evolution, in the course of which he raises himself above the
objective course of the world, and now only has within him the one
rhythm of day and night,  no longer the two rhythms working
together. These rhythms work in a certain sense at one time for the
universe, for the Macrocosm, and at another for man, for the
Microcosm; but they are no longer in unison. In this way man has, in a
certain respect, become a being independent of the Macrocosm.

Now, in those olden times, when, as we know, there was a certain
atavistic clairvoyance in man, he was then more in harmony with the
great course of the world-order, with respect to this rhythm. In olden
times people slept all night, and were awake all day. For this reason
the whole circle of man's experience was different from what it is
now. But man has had in a sense to be lifted out of this parallel with
the Macrocosm, and being thus torn away he has been compelled to
stimulate an inner independent life of his own. It cannot be said that
the main point was, that as in those days man slept at night he did
not then observe the stars; for he did observe them, notwithstanding
the fables of external science with respect to worship of the stars.
The essential thing was that man was then differently organised into
the whole world-order; for, while the sun was at the other side of the
earth and consequently did not exercise its immediate activity on the
part of the earth on which he lived, a man was then able in his ego
and astral bodies  which were outside his physical and etheric
bodies  to devote himself to the stars. He thus observed not
merely the physical stars, but perceived the Spiritual part of the
physical stars. He did not actually see the physical stars with
external eyes; but he saw the Spiritual part of the physical stars.
Hence we must not look upon what is related of the ancient
star-worship, as though the ancients looked up to the stars and then
made all sorts of beautiful symbols and images. It is very easy to
say, according to modern science: In those olden times the imagination
was very active; men imagined gods behind Saturn, Sun and Moon; they
pictured animal forms in the signs of the Zodiac. But it is only the
imagination of the learned scientists that works in this way,
inventing such ideas True it is, however, that in the state of
consciousness of the egos and astral bodies of the ancients, this did
seem to them to be as we have described, so that they really saw and
perceived those things. In this way man had direct vision of the
spirit which is the soul of the universe; he lived with it. In reality
it is only as regards our physical and etheric body that we are suited
for the earth; the ego and astral body in their present condition are
suited to the spirit that ensouls the universe, in the manner
described. We may say that they belong to that region of the universe;
but man must develop so far as really to be able to experience the
innermost being of his ego and astral body, and to have experiences
within them. For this purpose the external experience which was
present in olden times, had to disappear for a while, it had to be
blurred. The consciousness of communication with the stars had to
recede; it had to be dimmed, so that the inner being of man could
become powerful enough to enable him, at a definite time in the
future, to learn so to strengthen it that he may be able to find the
spirit, as spirit. Just as the ancients were united every night, when
asleep, with the spirit of the stellar-world, so was man once
connected with that spirit in the course of every year; but as time
went on, in the course of the year he came in touch with a Higher
Spirit of the world of the stars, and also in a sense with what went
on in that world. While asleep at night the forms of the stars in
their calm repose worked upon him; in the course of the year he was
affected by the changes connected with the sun's course through the
year; connected, as one might say, through the sun's course with the
destiny of the earth for the year, caused by her passage through the
seasons, and especially through the summer and winter.

You see, although some traditions are still extant relating to the
experiences man formerly went through when asleep at night, there are
but few remaining of those yet more distant times (or rather few
traced back to their origin), when men took part in the secrets of the
year's course. The echoes of these experiences still persist, but they
are little understood. If you seek among the myths of the different
peoples you will constantly come across that which proves that man
then knew something of a conflict between winter and summer, summer
and winter. Here again external erudition sees nothing but the
symbolic creative imagination of the ancients; it says, we in our
advanced times have gone much further than that! These were, however,
real experiences which man went through, and they played a significant
and profound part in the whole Spiritual civilisation of the ancient
past. There were mysteries in which the knowledge of the secrets of
the year were taught. Let us just consider the significance of such
mysteries. These were not the same in the very ancient times as they
became later, in the times when the history of ancient Egypt and of
ancient Greece and to some extent even the earlier Roman history was
enacted. We will, therefore, consider those mysteries which passed
away with the older civilisations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

In these mysteries there was still a consciousness of the connection
of the earth with the whole universe. At that time it was customary
for suitable persons to be subjected to a definite Psychical process
 but this could no longer be done today. They could then, during
a certain number of days  in winter  be sent to certain
definite localities, there to serve in a sense as receiving stations
for the universe, the supra-earthly universe, and to receive what it
is able to communicate to the earth at such times, if the times could
provide a sufficiently receptive receiving-station. Our present
Christmas time was then not precisely the most important time, though
approximately so but the exact time does not signify for the moment.
Let us assume the time to be between the 24th December, and the early
days of January. This season is one in which, through the special
position of the sun to the earth, the universe conveys something to
the earth that it does not at other times. At this season the universe
speaks in a more intimate way to the earth than at other times. This
is because the sun does not unfold its summer-force at this time; the
summer-force has in a certain respect, withdrawn. Now, the leaders of
the ancient mysteries took advantage of that time to make it possible
in certain organised places with the help of specially prepared
persons, to receive the inner secrets of the universe, which came down
to the earth during this intimate duologue. This may be compared today
with something certainly much more trivial, yet the two can be
compared. You know that what is known as wireless
telegraphy rests upon the fact that electric waves are set in
motion, which are then further transmitted without wires, and that in
certain places an instrument called a coherer is installed, which, by
its peculiar arrangement makes it possible for the electric waves to
be received and the coherer is then set in action. The whole thing
depends entirely on the arrangement and formation of the metal filings
in the coherer which are then shaken back into place when the waves
have passed through it. Now, if we assume that the secrets of the
universe, of the supra-earthly universe, pass through the earth at the
special time alluded to, it would be necessary to have an instrument
for receiving them; for the electric waves would pass by the
receiving-station to no purpose, unless the right instrument attuned
to receive them were there! Such an instrument is needed to receive
what comes from the universe. The ancient Greeks used their Pythia,
their priestesses for this purpose; they were trained for the purpose
and were very specially sensitive to what came down from the universe,
and were able to communicate its secrets. These secrets were then
later on taught by those who perhaps, had long been unable themselves
to act as receivers. Still the secrets of the universe were given out.
This, of course, took place under the sign of the holy mysteries, a
sign of which the present age, which has -no longer any feeling for
what is holy, has no conception. In our age the first thing would
obviously be to interview the priests of the mysteries!

Now, what was above all demanded of these priests? It was necessary in
a certain sense that they should know that if they made themselves
acquainted with what streamed down from the universe for the
fructification of earth-life, and especially if they used it in their
social knowledge, they must be capable, having thereby become much
cleverer, of establishing the principal laws and other rules for
government during the coming year.

It would at one time have been impossible to establish laws or social
ordinances, without first seeking guidance from those who were able to
receive the secrets of the Macrocosm. Later ages have retained dim and
dubious echoes of this greatness in their superstitious fancies. When
on New Year's Eve people pour melted lead into water to learn the
future of the coming year, that is but the superstitious remains of
that great matter of which I have described. Therein the endeavour was
made so to fructify the spirit of man that he might carry over into
the earth what could only spring from the universe; for it was desired
that man should so live on the earth that his life should not merely
consist of what can be experienced here, but also of what can be drawn
from the universe. In the same way, it was known that during the
summer time of the earth we are in a quite different relation to the
universe, and that during that season the earth cannot receive any
intimate communications from thence. The summer mysteries were based
upon this knowledge, and were intended for a quite different purpose,
which I need not go into today.

Now, as I have said, even less has come down to us in tradition
concerning the secrets of the course of the year, than of those things
relating to the rhythm between day and night, and between sleeping and
waking. But in those olden times, when man still had a high degree of
atavistic clairvoyance, through which he was able to experience in the
course of the year the intimate relations between the universe and the
earth, he was still conscious that what he thus experienced came from
that meeting with the Spiritual world, which he cannot now have every
time he sleeps. It came from the meeting with the Spiritual world in
which dwell those Spiritual beings we reckon as belonging to the world
of the Archangels  where man will some day dwell with his innermost
being, after he has developed his Life-Spirit, during the Venus
period. That is the world in which we must think of Christ, the Son,
as the directing and guiding principle. (Man had this meeting in all
ages, of course, but it was formerly perceived by means of atavistic
clairvoyance.) We have, therefore, called this meeting, which in the
course of the year man has in any part of the earth where he makes
Christmas in his winter: the meeting with the Son. Thus in the course
of a year, a man really goes through a rhythm which imitates that of
the seasons of the year, in which he has a meeting and a union with
the world of the Son.

Now we know that through the Mystery of Golgotha, that Being whom we
designate as the Christ has united Himself with the course of the
Earth. At the very time this union took place, the direct vision into
the Spiritual world had become blurred, as I have just explained.

We see the objective fact: that the Event of Golgotha is directly
connected with the alteration in the evolution of mankind on the earth
itself. Yet we may say that there were times in the earth's
development when, in the sense of the old atavistic clairvoyance, man
entered into relation with Christ, through becoming aware of the
intimate duologue held between the earth and the Macrocosm. Upon this
rests the belief held by certain modern learned men, students of
religion, with some justification:  the belief that an original
primal revelation had once been given to the earth. It came about in
the manner described. It was an old primeval revelation. All the
different religions on the face of the earth are fragments of that
original revelation, fragments fallen into decadence. In what position
then are those who accepted the Mystery of Golgotha? They are able to
express an intense inner recognition of the Spiritual content of the
universe, by saying: That which in olden times could only be perceived
through the duologue of the earth with the cosmos, has now descended;
it dwelt within a human being, it appeared in the Man, Jesus of
Nazareth, in the course of the Mystery of Golgotha. Recognition of the
Christ who dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth, recognition of that Being who
was formerly perceptible to the atavistic clairvoyance of man at
certain seasons of the year, must be increasingly emphasised as
necessary for the Spiritual development of humanity. For the two
elements of Christianity will be then united as they really should and
must be, if on the one hand Christianity, and on the other humanity,
are each to develop further in the right way. The fact that in the old
Christian traditions the Legend of Christ Jesus was part of the yearly
celebration of the Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide Festivals, is
connected with this; and, as I stated in a former lecture, the fact
that the Festival of Christmas is kept at a fixed date, while Easter
is regulated according to the heavenly constellations, is also
connected with this. Christmas is celebrated in accordance with the
earth-conditions, it is kept in what is always the very depth of
winter and this hangs together with the meeting with Christ, with the
Son, which meeting really takes place at that season. Christ, however,
is a Being belonging to the Macrocosm. He descended from thence, yet
is One with it; and this is expressed in the fixing of Easter by the
heavens in spring, according to the constellations of sun and moon;
 for the Easter Festival is intended to show that Christ belongs
to the whole universe, just as Christmas should point to the descent
of Christ to the earth. So it was right that what belongs to the
seasons of the year through their rhythm in human life, should be
inserted into the course of the year as has been done. For this is so
profound a thing, as regards the inner being of man, that it is really
right that these Festivals relating to the Mystery of Golgotha, should
continue to be held in harmony with the rhythm of the great universe,
and not be subject to the alteration which in modern cities has taken
place in the hours of sleeping and waking.

Here we have something in which man should not as yet exercise his
freewill, something in which each year the consciousness should come
to him, that, though he can no longer come into touch with the great
universe through atavistic clairvoyance, there is still something
living within him which belongs to the universe and expresses itself
in the course of the year.

Now, among the things which are perhaps the most found fault with in
Spiritual Science by certain religious sects, is, that according to
Spiritual Science the Christ-Impulse must once again be bound up with
the whole universe. I have often emphatically stated that Spiritual
Science takes nothing away from the traditions of religion with
respect to the mystery of Christ Jesus; but rather adds to them the
connection which surrounds that mystery extending, as it does, from
the earth to the whole universe. Spiritual Science does not seek
Christ on the earth alone, but in the whole universe.

It is indeed not easy to understand why certain religious confessions
so strongly condemn this connecting of the Christ-Impulse with Cosmic
Events. This attitude would be comprehensible if Spiritual Science
wished to do away with the traditions of Christianity; but as it only
adds to them, that should not be a reason for censure. So it is,
however; and the reason is that people do not wish anything to be
added to certain traditions.

There is, however, something very serious behind all this, something
of very great importance to our age. I have often drawn your attention
to the fact, which is also mentioned in the first of my Mystery Plays,
that we are approaching a time in which we can speak of a Spiritual
return of Christ. I need not go more fully into this today, it is well
known to all our friends. This Christ Event will, however, not merely
be an event satisfying the transcendental curiosity of man, but it
will above all bring to their minds a demand for a new understanding
of the Christ-Impulse. Certain basic words of the Christian faith,
which ought to surge through the whole world as holy impulses 
at any rate through the world of those who wish to take up the
Christ-Impulse  are not understood deeply enough. I will now
only call to your remembrance the significant and incisive words:
My kingdom is not of this world. These words will take on
a new meaning when Christ appears in a world which is truly not of
this world, not of the world of sense. It must be a profound attribute
of the Christian conception of the world to cultivate an understanding
of other human views and conceptions, with the sole exception of rough
and crude materialism. Once we know that all the religions on the
earth are the remnants of ancient vision, it will then only be a
question of taking seriously enough what was thus perceived; for later
on, because mankind was no longer organised for vision, the results of
the former vision only filtered through in fragmentary form into the
different religious creeds. This can once again be recognised through
Christianity. Through Christianity a profound understanding can be
gained, not only of the great religions, but of every form of
religious creed on the earth. It is certainly easy to say this; though
at the same time very difficult to make men really adopt these views.
Yet they must become part of their convictions, all the wide world
over. For Christianity, in so far as it has spread over the earth up
to the present time, is but one religion among many, one creed among a
number of others. That is not the purpose for which it was founded; it
was founded that it might spread understanding over the whole earth.
Christ did not suffer death for a limited number of people, nor was He
born for a few; but for all. In a certain sense there is a
contradiction between the demand that Christianity should be for all
men and the fact that it has become one of many creeds. It is not
intended to be a separate creed, and it can only be that, because it
is not understood in its full and deep meaning. To grasp this deep
meaning a cosmic understanding is necessary.

One is compelled today to wrestle for words wherewith to express
certain truths, which are now so far removed from man that we lack the
words to express them. One is often obliged to express the great
truths by means of comparisons. You will recollect that I have often
said that Christ may be called the Sun-Spirit. From what I have said
today about the yearly course of the sun, you will see that there is
some justification for calling Him the Sun-Spirit. But we can form no
idea of this, we cannot picture it, unless we keep the cosmic relation
of Christ in view, unless we consider the Mystery of Golgotha as a
real Christ-Mystery, as something that certainly took place on this
earth, and yet is of significance for the whole universe and took
place for the whole universe.

Now, men are in conflict with one another about many things on the
earth, and they are at variance on many questions; they are at
variance in their religious beliefs, and believe themselves to be at
variance as regards their nationality and many other things. This lack
of unity brings about times such as those in which we are living now.
Men are not of one mind even with regard to the Mystery of Golgotha.
For no China-man or Indian will straightway accept what a European
missionary says about the Mystery of Golgotha. To those who look at
things as they are, this fact is not without significance. There is,
however, one thing concerning which men are still of one mind. It
seems hardly credible, but it is a commonplace truth and one we cannot
help admitting, that when we reflect how people live together on the
earth, we cannot help wondering that there should be anything left
upon which they are not at variance; yet there still are things about
which people are of one mind, and one such example is the view people
hold about the sun. The Japanese, Chinese, and even the English and
Americans, do not believe that one sun rises and sets for them and
another for the Germans. They still believe in the sun being the
common property of all; indeed they still believe that what is
supra-earthly is the common property of all. They do not even dispute
that, they do not go to war about these things. And that can be taken
as a sort of comparison. As has been said, these things can only be
expressed by comparisons. When once people realise the connection of
Christ with these things which men do not dispute, they will not
dispute about Him, but will learn to see Him in the Kingdom which is
not of this world, but which belongs to Him. But until men recognise
the cosmic significance of Christ, they will not be of one mind with
respect to the things concerning which unity should prevail. For we
shall then be able to speak of Christ to the Jews, to the Chinese, to
the Japanese, and to the Indians,  just as we speak to Christian
Europeans. This will open up an immensely significant perspective for
the further development of Christianity on the earth, as well as for
the development of mankind on the earth. For ways must be found of
arousing in the souls of men, sentiments which all people shall be
able to understand equally.

That will be one thing demanded of us in the time that shall bring the
return, the Spiritual return, of the Christ. Especially with respect
to the words: My Kingdom is not of this world, a deeper
understanding will come about in that time; a deeper understanding of
the fact that there is in the human being not only what pertains to
the earth, but something supra-earthly, which lives in the annual
course of the sun. We must grow to feel that as in the individual
human life the soul rules the body, so in everything that goes on
outside, in the rising and setting stars, in the bright sunlight, and
fading twilight, there dwells something Spiritual; and just as we
belong to the air with our lungs, so do we belong to the Spiritual
part of the universe with our souls. We do not belong to the abstract
Spiritual life of an outgrown Pantheism, but to that concrete
Spirituality which lives in each individual being. Thus we shall find
that there is something Spiritual which belongs to the human soul,
which indeed is the human soul; and that this is in inner connection
with what lives in the course of the year as does the breath in a man;
and that the course of the year with its secrets belongs to the
Christ-Being, who went through the Mystery of Golgotha. We must soar
high enough to be able to connect what took place historically on the
earth in the Mystery of Golgotha, with the great secrets of the world
 with the Macrocosmic secrets. From such an understanding will
proceed something extremely important: a knowledge of the social needs
of man. A great deal of social science is practised in our day, and
all sorts of social ideals mooted. Certainly nothing can be said
against that, but all these things will have to be fructified by that
which will spring up in man, through realising the course of the year
as a Spiritual impulse. For only by vividly experiencing each year the
image of the Mystery of Golgotha, parallel with the course of the
year, can we become inspired with real social knowledge and feeling.

What I am now saying must certainly seem absolutely strange to people
of the present day, yet it is true. When the year's course is again
generally felt by humanity as in inner connection with the Mystery of
Golgotha, then, by attuning the feelings of the soul with both the
course of the year and the secret of the Mystery of Golgotha, a true
social ruling will be the true solution, or at any rate the true
continuation of what is today so foolishly called (in reference to
what is really in view) the social question. Precisely through
Spiritual Science people will have to acquire a knowledge of the
connections of man with the universe. This will certainly lead them to
see more in this universe than does the materialism of today.

Just those very things to which least importance is attributed today,
are really the most important. The materialistic biology, the
materialistic Natural Science of today compares man with the animal;
though it certainly does admit a certain difference,  in degree.
In its own domain it is of course right; but what it completely leaves
out of account is the relation of man to the directions of the
universe. The animal spine  and in this respect the exceptions
prove the rule  the animal spine is parallel with the surface of
the earth, its direction is out into the universe. The human spine is
directed towards the earth. For this reason man is quite different
from the animal, above and below. The above and below in
man determine his whole being. In the animal the spine is directed to
the infinite distances of the Macrocosm; in man the upper part of the
head, the brain, and man himself are inserted into the whole
Macrocosm. This is of enormous significance. This brings about what
establishes a relation between the Spiritual and bodily in man, and
through this his Spiritual and bodily parts are made subject to the
conditions of above and below. I shall have more to say on this
subject, but today I will merely just allude to it in a sketchy way.
This above and below characterises what we may call
the going out of the ego and astral body during sleep. For
man with his physical body and etheric body is really inserted into
and forms part of the earth while he is awake. During the night time
he, with his ego and astral body is in a certain sense, inserted into
that which is above.

Now we may ask: well, how is it then with other opposites to be found
in the Macrocosm? There is also the opposite which in man can be
described as before and behind. In respect to these, too,
man is inserted in a different way into the whole universe than is the
animal or, indeed the plant. Man is inserted in such a way that he
corresponds both before and behind to the course of the sun. This
before and behind is the direction which corresponds to
the rhythm in which man takes part in living and dying. Just as man
expresses in a sense a living relation of the above and
below in his sleeping and waking, so in his living and dying
does he also express the relation of before and behind.
This before and behind is in correspondence with the
course of the sun; so that for man, before signifies
towards the east, and behind towards the west. East and
west form the second direction of space, that direction of which we
really speak when we say that the human soul forsakes the human body
not in sleep, but at death. For the soul on leaving the body goes
towards the east. This is only still to be found in those traditions
in which, when a man dies it is said: he has entered the eternal
east. Such old traditional sayings will some day, as indeed they
are even now, be looked upon by learned men as merely symbolic. Some
such platitudes as the following will be uttered: The sun rises
in the east, and is a beautiful sight; therefore, when it was
desired to speak of eternity, the ancients spoke of the east! Yet this
corresponded to a reality, and indeed one more closely connected with
the yearly course of the sun than with the course of the day.

The third difference is that between the inner and the outer. Above
and below, east and west, inner and outer. We live an inner life and
we live an outer life. The day after tomorrow (15 March, 1917) I shall
give a public lecture on this inner and outer life, entitled:
The human soul and the human body. We live an inner and an
outer life. These form just as great opposites in man as above and
below, east and west. Whereas in the course of the year man has more
to do with what I might call a representative delineation of the whole
course of life, we may say that when we speak of an inner and outer
life in connection with the life and death of man, we refer to the
whole course of his life, especially in so far as it has an ascending
and a descending development. We know that up to a certain age a man
goes through an ascending development. His collective growth then
ceases, it remains at a standstill for a while, and then retrogrades.
Now it hangs together with the collective course of a man's life, that
at its early stages his whole body is then more connected in a
natural, elemental way, with the Spiritual. I might say that at the
beginning of his life a man is constituted in the very opposite way
from what he is at the middle of his life, when he attains the zenith
of his ascending development. In the first part of his life a man
grows, thrives, and increases; afterwards his descending development
begins. This is connected with the fact that the physical forces of
man are then no longer in themselves forces of growth, for with the
forces of growth are also intermingled the forces of decay. The inner
nature of man is then connected in a similar way with the universe, as
at his birth, at the beginning of his life, his outer bodily nature is
connected with the universe. A complete turning round takes place.
That is why at the present day a man goes through in a state of
unconsciousness, in the middle of his life, the meeting with the
Father-Principle, with that Spiritual Being whom we reckon as
belonging to the Hierarchy of the Archai. He then meets with that
Spiritual world in which he will dwell when he has completely
developed his Spirit-Man.

Now, one might ask: Is this too in any way connected with the whole
universe? Is there anything in the life of the universe connected in a
similar way with the meeting that occurs in the middle of a man's life
with the Father-Principle, as the meeting with the Spirit is connected
with the rhythm of day and night, and the meeting with the Son with
the rhythm of the year? That question might be asked. Well, now, my
dear friends, we must bear in mind and hold firmly to the fact that,
as regards the meeting with the Father-Principle, and also as regards
that with the Spirit-Principle, man is lifted above rhythm, rhythm
does not run quite parallel with man. For men are not all born at the
same time, but at different times, therefore, the course of their
lives cannot be parallel; but they can inwardly reflect some Spiritual
Cosmic happening.

Do they do this?

Well, you see, if we recall what is stated in the little book:
Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy,
and in other books and courses of lectures, we shall know, that in the
first seven years man more particularly builds up his physical body,
in the next seven years his etheric body, in the next seven years his
astral body. Then for seven years he forms the sentient soul; from
twenty-eight to thirty-five he forms the intellectual or reasoning
soul; and during this period he has the meeting with the
Father-Principle. It takes place during that time;  not that it
extends over the whole period, but it occurs during those years;
 so that we may say: a man prepares for it in his twenty-eight,
twenty-ninth, and thirtieth years. In the case of most people the
meeting takes place in the deepest subconscious regions of the human
soul. Now, we must assume that this corresponds to something that
takes place in the universe; that is, we must find in the universe
something representing a course, a rhythm. Just as the rhythm of day
and night is one of twenty-four hours, and the course of the year one
of three hundred and sixty-five days, so we ought to be able to find
something of a like nature in the universe, only that would have to be
more comprehensive. AR this is connected with the sun, or at least
with the solar system. Just as the twenty-eighth twenty-ninth, and
thirtieth years are more comprehensive than the period of twenty-four
hours; and the three hundred and sixty-five days than any other
period, so something yet greater must be connected with the sun,
something corresponding with this third meeting. Now, the ancients
rightly considered Saturn as the most distant planet from our solar
system; it is the furthest away. From the standpoint of materialistic
astronomy it was quite justifiable to add Uranus and Neptune to our
system; but they have a different origin and do not belong to the
solar system; so that we may speak of Saturn as the outermost Planet
of our system. Now let us consider this. If Saturn forms the boundary
of the solar system, we may say that in its circuit round the sun, it
travels round the outermost boundaries of the solar system. When
Saturn travels round this and returns to the point from which he
started, he describes the extreme limits of the solar system. When he
has traveled round the Sun and returned to his starting point, he then
occupies the same relation to the sun as he did at first. Now Saturn,
(as may be said, according to the Copernican Cosmic System) takes from
twenty-nine to thirty years to complete his course, which is thus of
about that duration. Here then, in the circuit of Saturn round the
sun, which is not yet understood today  (the facts are really
quite different, but the Copernican Cosmic System has not yet gone far
enough to understand these) in this course of Saturn we have a
connection, extending to the furthest limits of the solar system, with
the course of a human life, which is thus an image of the Saturnian
circuit in so far as the life-course of man leads to the meeting with
the Father. That also leads us out into the Macrocosm. In this way, my
dear friends, I think I have shown you that the innermost being of man
can only be understood when considered in its connection to the
supra-earthly. The supra-earthly, being Spiritual, is organised into
that which in a sense it turns towards us visibly. But that which it
manifests visibly is also merely an expression of the Spiritual. The
raising of man above materialism will only take place when knowledge
has progressed far enough to raise itself above the mere comprehension
of earthly connections, and ascends once more to the grasp of the
world of the stars and the sun.

I have already pointed out on a former occasion, that many things of
which the present scholastic wisdom does not allow itself to dream,
are connected with these things. Today men believe they will some day
be able to generate living beings in their laboratories from inorganic
matter. Materialism makes the most of this today. But it is not
necessary to be a materialist to believe that a living being can be
created out of inorganic matter, in the laboratory; for the
alchemists, who certainly were not materialists, testified that they
could make Homunculi; but today this is taken in a materialistic
sense. The time will come, however, when it will be realised and
inwardly felt, on approaching a man at work in his laboratory 
(for living beings will indeed be produced in the laboratory from that
which has no life)  on approaching such a man we shall feel
ourselves compelled to say: Welcome to the star of the
hour! For this cannot be brought about at any hour; it will
depend on the constellations. Whether life arises from the lifeless,
will depend on the forces that do not belong to the earth, but come
from the universe. Much is connected with these secrets. We shall
speak of these things again in the near future, for it is now possible
to say somewhat on these subjects, concerning which de Saint-Martin,
who was called The unknown philosopher says in many
passages of his book on Truth and Error, that he thanks God that they
are shrouded in secrecy. They cannot remain shrouded in secrecy
however, for man will need them for his further development; but one
thing is necessary, my dear friends, it is necessary that men should
once more acquire that earnestness and feeling for the holiness of all
these things, without which the world will not make the right use of
such knowledge.